Seth came out into the light, slapping the dust off his hands. “What’s that you say? Why isn’t she going?” “I dunnao nothin’ more ’n I’ve told yeh. Ask her yerself. I ’spose she’s be’n cryin’ at the thought of yer goin’. That’ll be the eend o’ ev’rythin’ atwixt you two, won’t it?” “Oh, do mind your own business, Milton!” Seth said, and hurried across the barnyard to where the two young women stood, on the doorstep. “Why aren’t you going, Annie? What’s the matter?” he called out as he approached. Poor Annie looked the picture of despair. Her face bore the marks of recent tears and she hung her head in silence. Isabel answered for her. “Going? Of course she is going. It would be ridiculous not to go, now that everything’s arranged. Get the things together, Seth, and let us make a start.” “But Milton said she wasn’t going,” persisted Seth. “Dear, dear, how downright you are! Don’t I tell you that she _is_ going, that there is nothing the matter, that we are waiting for you?” And there was nothing more to be said. The sun came out before the trio had gone far, but not before they had begun to forget the cloud at the start. The grass in the pastures was not quite dry yet, but wet feet were a part of the fun of the thing, Isabel said gaily. The meadow larks careened in the air about them, and the bobolinks, swinging on the thistle tops, burst into chorus from every side as the sunlight spread over the hill-side. There were robins, too, in the juniper trees beyond the white-flowering buckwheat patch, Seth pointed out, too greedy to wait till the green berries ripened. A flock of crows rose from the buckwheat as they passed and who could help smiling at Isabel’s citified imitation of their strident hawing? They came upon some strawberries, half-hidden in the tall grass beside the rail-topped wall, and Isabel would gather them in her handkerchief, to serve as dessert in their coming _al fresco_ dinner, and Annie helped her, smiling in spite of herself at the city lady’s extravagant raptures. When they stopped to rest, in the fresh-scented shadow of the woods, and sat on a log along the path, two wee chipmunks came out from the brake opposite and began a chirping altercation, so comical in its suggestions of human wrangling that they all laughed outright. The sound scared away the tiny rodents in a twinkling, and it banished as swiftly the restraint under which the excursion had begun. From that moment it was all gayety, jesting, enjoyment. Isabel was the life of the party; she said the drollest things;--passed the quaintest comments,--revealed such an inexhaustable store of spirits that she lifted her companions fairly out of their serious selves. Seth found himself talking easily, freely, and even Annie now and again made little jokes, at which they all laughed merrily.